29 February, 2024
Dear Reader,
The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies is an independent, not-for-profit think tank, dedicated to promoting awareness of the Catholic Intellectual and Cultural Traditions as essential components of western civilisation.
Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) is considered to have been the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century. He is principally known for his powerful defence of the vital role of the Christian religion as a major strand of Western culture, but he also insists ‘that Christianity is not bound up with any particular race or culture. It is neither of the East or of the West, but has a universal mission to the human race as a whole…’
We in the Dawson Centre believe that every civilisation is shaped by a religious impulse, something fundamental to and inseparable from human nature, and that civilisations wither when this impulse is smothered or suppressed. In the twentieth century, and perhaps even more now, we in the west have seen that nexus between Religion and Culture, between Faith and Reason, challenged by tyrannical forces of both the Right and the Left.
The CDC publishes a fortnightly e-newsletter (always free of charge), runs short courses, and hosts an annual Colloquium on a subject of high topical significance. Our talks and lectures are videoed and posted on our YouTube channel. Our website is www.dawsoncentre.org.
Western Civilisation is facing an existential threat because of the rejection of Christianity as the guiding belief system and the attack on the true understanding and good of the human person. The dominant ideas in the culture now guiding society are a form of atheistic emotivist materialism, inspired by Marxist ideology. They reject not just the Christian understanding of the person and reality, but biological reality.
There are currently several conservative think tanks operating in Australia, most notably the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). They are very good at bringing to the public’s attention various examples of the descent of the culture into materialist emotivism, in the form of government and corporate policies and practices, but they are heavily influenced by libertarian ideals that by themselves cannot fully appreciate the spiritual crisis facing Western Civilisation.
The web is flooded with conservative podcasts and media about threats to the West. If we explore more deeply the points of difference between ourselves and all the others, I think we shall find that few think tanks or advocacy organisations offer a thoroughly Catholic theological understanding of the social and political order and critique, on that basis, the dominant ideas that drive the secular culture and undermine western civilisation.
The Dawson Centre asks for your continuing support. You can help by spreading the word and encouraging others to subscribe. We need to get good ideas out if we are to deflect the toxic attitudes that are crippling our society.
With best wishes and thanks,
David Daintree
Our guest article this issue is by Erik Peacock, a lay preacher in an evangelical church. Erik was at one time a committed left-wing activist and an atheist. He is thus well placed to understand both sides of the liberal/conservative dialectic. We found his viewpoint refreshingly different and hope you do too. Erik presented the colloquium paper The How and Why of Defeating Cultural Marxism published in Heart to Heart. Incidentally, a secular version of this collision between two fundamentally opposed world views can be seen in the clash between Argentina’s Javier Milei and the elite at Davos.
SCALING THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer is perhaps the nearest thing Protestants have to a saint. Bonhoeffer, a native German, was famously martyred by the Nazis during the second world war. Less famously, he and the ‘Confessing Church’ which he partly founded and which refused to comply with government dictates, was marginalised, and looked down on by the mainstream Protestant churches in Germany. After all, Hitler was making Germany great again, opposing Communists and homosexuals, and bringing jobs back: surely the church should fall in behind? There were of course those who looked deeper, asked the hard questions, and tried to warn others. Today they would be called ‘conspiracy theorists’ and likely de-platformed.
Society is now divided on many lines but I suggest the principal conflict is between two world views:
In one view, the government and the experts ‘know’ and tell us what to do (cf Plato’s Republic). The media mediate and interpret truth. Our job as good citizens is to obey the government. This includes churches whose sphere is limited to a narrow private system of belief that has nothing to say about public policy: that is how we ‘render unto Caesar…’ This view is particularly popular among evangelicals who mis-interpret Romans 13, 1-7, to justify moral and intellectual laziness in public life.
In the other view, citizens make their own enquiries from multiple sources of truth and tell the government what to do. That is our job as citizens. It is the duty of the church to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28, 16-20) by capturing the ‘seven mountains of culture’ and so making disciples of the nation. According to Loren Cunningham (1935-2013), roughly three percent of the population control the direction, values and moral climate of any given culture/nation. They do this by being leaders of seven ‘mountains’:
- Religion
- Family
- Politics
- Arts/entertainment
- Economy
- Media
- Education
Therefore to fulfil the Great Commission to disciple all nations Christians need to strategically target these areas. This is the basic idea of Dominion Theology. While accepting the formal separation of church and state, it rejects the idea of separation between the church and the other aspects of society, and sees the Gospel as more than saving souls and filling churches, but rather a means of redeeming society as a whole. We answer to God, nation, community and government in that order.
These world views are irreconcilable. Therefore some degree of civil unrest and violence is inevitable. So are major chasms within the Church. The objective of the social Left (and other forces) is to create an approved state-sanctioned church whose teachings align with State ideology. I predict, based on historical observation, current trends, and the behaviour of church leaders between Christmas 2020 and Christmas 2023, that most church leaders will side with the State. The true church will be marginalised within the institutional church and may be driven underground. I am not panicked or bitter, but I am quietly figuring out who my friends may be in the underground church. On the other hand, this may be our greatest revival.
In good news the following were defeated in 2023:
- Two attempts to introduce a global pandemic treaty. This would have given the globalists and the Chinese Communist Party executive power via international treaty to shut down Western World economies at will. It was arguably the greatest threat to our sovereignty since the second world war.
- One attempt by the UN to mandate to member States’ ‘comprehensive sexuality education’ and pro-abortion propaganda.
There is a much delayed but very welcome shift to conservatism in Europe and New Zealand, though not yet in Australia. Many battles await us in 2024, not least an attempt to establish an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ to shut down non-approved narratives. Would that ever include Christmas? Let us be diligent in prayer, watchful for opportunity, generous and thankful. ‘Faith, hope and love abide…’
FOR FURTHER READING
‘THE BURDEN OF THE HUMANITIES’
Wilfred M McClay wrote this engaging piece in The New Criterion: ‘We need to make sure that the future generations of savages know about Shakespeare, who will help them understand why they should want to claim the right to be unhappy. And to be human.’
LEARNING ABOUT ART
One of our kind readers strongly recommends Great Art Explained. The owner of the site, James Payne, writes: ‘A curator, gallerist and a passionate art lover, I am on a mission to demystify the art world and discover the stories behind the world’s greatest paintings and sculptures.’ Each talk is no more than 15 minutes, each ‘a joy to watch’ says our reader.
THE ‘RICKY GERVAIS’ OF MODERN ECONOMICS?
An aggressive Javier Milei turns out to be a Trojan Horse at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 17 January! Watch the whole speech here. Very entertaining, though not perhaps for his audience.
FREE SPEECH IN UNIVERSITIES
Should universities be completely unaligned and politically neutral? Is that such a big ask? The Kalven Principle dates back to 1967, in the days when students politics were white hot, yet it seems to have been completely abandoned.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO GEN Z?
‘Touchy-feely parenting and therapy have created the loneliest, most helpless, depressed, and fearful young people ever.’ This excellent piece by Abigail Shrier is well worth reading, but you’ll have to wade through all the ads that allow the Daily Mail to offer it without a pay wall!
BINARY’S LEGAL DEFENCE FUND
Kirralie Smith’s Binary Foundation is under attack. These days if you stand up for an unfashionable view of society you can be charged with discrimination. The person bringing the charge does so without cost, but victim must pay defence costs. This can be crippling. It’s trial by ordeal. We used to talk about ‘mischievous litigants’, but now we call them ‘rights activists’. The Dawson Centre is not connected with Binary, but we share a certain view of justice. Please help if you can.
COMING EVENTS
Several events are being planned, but we propose to keep them under wraps till dates have been finalised. But don’t forget to add this to your diary-
COLLOQUIUM 2024
The 2024 Colloquium will be on SATURDAY 6 JULY
Topic: Authentic Humanism and the Crisis of Culture